


You Think You Know Somebody

by sinaddict



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-19
Updated: 2005-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-08 22:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinaddict/pseuds/sinaddict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You think you know somebody. Turns out you don't even know yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Think You Know Somebody

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through 'Clash of the Tritons.' For the Metamorphosis challenge. Thanks to [oxoniensis](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/) for the beta!

The first time you let him fuck you, you keep your eyes open so you don't pretend it's something more than it really is. The second time you let him fuck you, Logan blindfolds you so you have to pretend (_he's someone else, someone you don't hate, someone that matters to you as a person_). You think, in a really weird, psychologically messed-up way, this explains your ~~relationship~~ _thing_ with each other better than anything else you could say would. It's burning and freezing. One extreme to the other. All or nothing, nothing and everything.

And, in a way, it's exactly what you need.

~

You don't talk. Aside from your "God, _there_"s and "Harder"s, and his "Fuck"s and "Veronica"s, but you don't think those really count as conversation. You aren't a couple, you're not in a relationship, hell, you're not even friends or anything close to it. And you don't bother pretending otherwise.

He still taunts you at school.

You still find creative ways to pay him back for it -- the bong in his locker was child's play compared to some of your more recent schemes -- and the more often you fuck him, the more time you spend actively trying to piss him off.

Which, of course, leads you right back into his bed (or his car or the janitor's closet or wherever else he decides he wants you on any given day because you ~~can't~~ don't say no to him like you used to) since every time you piss him off enough, you know he'll come looking for you to get retribution.

Logan's retribution is always, always something you've told him you won't do.

It makes it harder to take that you always give in and, _damn him_, you enjoy it.

~

You think you've been manipulated a little too easily. It's easy to see in hindsight when you're not backed up against a wall with Logan's body against yours, his mouth on yours until you can't breathe, but you don't want to anyway because if you did you'd have to stop. But he knows what buttons to push to get his way while he's distracting you with his hands and his mouth.

The blindfold is the first thing you try to say no to.

Even as you watch him wind the black silk around his hands, you're morbidly a little fascinated with the idea -- _no, you're not, because you're not like that_ \-- and he's smirking at you like it's a challenge he knows you won't refuse.

_Lilly loved it,_ he tells you, and you want to hit him for bringing Lilly into this even though he didn't say it all taunting and sarcastic like he usually would. He's being too matter-of-fact about this, like he knows you'll say yes because you know that Lilly wouldn't be afraid to, and he seals it by asking you, _Don't you want to know what Lilly felt?_

God help you, but you do.

_You want to be more like Lilly, deep down, you know you do._

You're not really sure what's worse: that you get off on it, or that you moan his name when you do.

~

Somewhere around the sixth time, you stop counting because it's way too depressing to admit to yourself that there were first and second times with a guy you hate, much less fourth, fifth, sixth, thirteenth, or twenty-sevenths.

It's somewhere between the first blindfold and you letting him feel you up in the alley behind your father's building when you're supposed to be running a file down to Cliff McCormack at the courthouse that you realize he's making you crave the thrill of almost being caught.

_It's all his fault. You wouldn't like this at all if he didn't make you._

_(And he tells you that Lilly loved the threat of being caught, too, as he slides his hand up your thigh under your skirt.)_

You still hate that he makes you so hot doing things that are perverse and sick and _wrong_.

Doesn't really stop you from letting him do them, though.

~

The first time Duncan catches you, it doesn't occur to you until afterward that Logan probably set the whole thing up. You're in the pool house, in the middle of the afternoon, with the doors unlocked because you know Logan's parents are gone but he wants to talk dirty to you about how anyone could walk in and see you, and he manages to make that sound appealing even though it's sick and _wrong_.

You're almost there, and you dig your nails into his back, hoping you leave marks until he catches your hands and pins them over your head, and _oh god_ it's _wrong_, but he slides a little deeper and he's telling you that any second now someone will walk in and see you with him and _God, Logan, there..._

And then Duncan's there, looking down at you with shock and hurt and hundred other things you can't put a name to but they're all bad, and _Oh god_ this can not be happening, this is all just a nightmare. You struggle against Logan's hold, panting, _Logan, stop, Oh GOD, Logan_ and your struggling drives him harder and then you're coming and you can't, oh _GOD_...

Before you can fully get back to yourself, you feel Duncan tearing Logan away from you, and they're knocking things over as they fight. You scream at them to stop as you hold the sheet up over your breasts -- _you know you're being stupid because they've both already seen your breasts_ \-- and you're not even sure they hear you. But you know, it's kind of funny to be watching Duncan, fully clothed, wrestle around the floor with Logan, who's still naked and somewhat aroused, and now you're laughing too hard at how dumb they're acting to worry about if they're hurting each other.

"What's so damn funny, Veronica?" Logan demands from where he's pinned to the floor beneath Duncan, and it sends you into a fresh burst of uncontrollable laughter because they look like petulant little boys fighting over a toy. And though you know you're the toy, it's still funny.

You don't realize you've started crying, too, until you hear yourself say, "Lilly would've paid good money to watch this."

Logan tells you matter-of-factly, "She never had to. We did it for free for her."

If the flare in Duncan's eyes hadn't told you Logan was being serious, the way he raised his fist to punch Logan again would've, and even though you know what Logan's doing, that he's just pushing your buttons again to get his way, you let him manipulate you. You wait until Duncan hits him again (because he really did deserve that punch for being such an asshole) before you roll your eyes at both of them and drop the sheet.

_If Lilly did this, then you can too..._

It doesn't sound like your voice that says, "Lock the door," but you think it is.

~

You don't feel guilty for bugging the "grief counseling" sessions. You tell yourself you did it to help you find the real murderer, so it's okay to listen in on everyone's private admissions about what Lilly meant to them. Weevil took you completely by surprise -- _why hadn't Lilly ever mentioned anything?_ \-- but Logan makes you ache somewhere deep inside with a gnawing guilt you can't convince yourself you don't really feel.

It never occurred to you that he'd blame _you_ for losing Lilly. You don't know why -- you used to be friends and he did such a one-eighty into complete jackass mode that he became a different Logan altogether, but you never really questioned why he suddenly started treating you like a pebble in his shoe.

You didn't remember that stupid party that you were supposed to meet Lilly at (because she promised you Duncan wasn't going and it was still fresh and painful that he broke up with you through his sister) until Logan brings it up. And when he says, "Veronica was my friend," it all clicks in your head because you should've talked to him first before you mentioned it to Lilly, but back then everything was about Lilly.

_Everything's still about Lilly and she's not even here._

You wish you hadn't done this. Now you can't be the same around him.

And he'll notice the difference. You ~~know~~ don't know why.

~

You tell yourself you're too busy trying to clear your name to make time for Logan right now. You're not avoiding him. (It has nothing to do with you eavesdropping on his private conversation with Ms. James.) You're just busy.

You can't even lie to yourself. How do you plan to lie to him?

You want to strangle Duncan for his involvement with the Tritons. And you tell yourself it isn't personal because you still haven't technically fucked Duncan, which would be more sick and wrong than being wrong with Logan is sick and wrong. You never think about the Tritons actually doing you any harm because you want to believe that Duncan will stop them.

As you're being forced into the trunk of your car by a group of masked men, you realize that you overestimated Duncan. Again. Your heart is racing as you hear a car drive away, and suddenly you're crying and you can't stop because you were actually fucking _scared_ for a minute there when you were surrounded by guys and you were helpless.

_Was one of them at the party that night? Did they have you helpless before?_

And you miss just being helpless with Logan because you were safe then.

Which is almost as sick and wrong as your _thing_ with Duncan.

You call Wallace instead of Logan to come get you out. You tell yourself that fucking Logan in the backseat wouldn't really make you feel any better even if a little part of you thinks it might. You also tell yourself that Logan would probably be too busy laughing at you and taunting you to unlock the trunk for a good ten minutes after he arrives.

Even though he doesn't taunt when you're alone anymore. (You still can't call him.)

Wallace doesn't push you on the subject aside from a rather curious, "I'm assuming you didn't lock yourself in the trunk?"

And then your break comes and you're too busy to think about Logan for a while.

~

You hear about it on the five o'clock news like everybody else. Lynn Echolls suspected of killing herself, her car found abandoned in the middle of the northbound lane of the freeway, Aaron Echolls recently stabbed by a jilted mistress, blah, blah, blah.

And all you can think is that Logan needs you now.

You lie to your father. You aren't sure why, but you don't want him knowing that you're going to Logan's. Instead you make up something about a project with Wallace; you can't really remember exactly because all you can think about is Logan and how you felt when your mom left.

(But you'll see your mom again someday and Logan probably won't. There is no optimism in Neptune, you know, just lying to yourself until the truth smacks you across the face.)

You call him from your car because you realize halfway to his house that he wouldn't want to stay there with the press camped out in the driveway waiting for reactions from him and his father. He tells you to meet him at the Camelot Motel, and you don't argue because he doesn't sound like Logan, he sounds exhausted and raw and hopeless.

Before you're through the doorway, he's on you, and there's something desperate about his hands on you, the way he kisses you now, and you think you'll let him do anything he wants if it'll take that despair out of him. You tell him as much, _Whatever you want, Logan,_ and he murmurs something you can't understand against your lips.

He fucks you like you're the water in the desert and he's afraid you're just a mirage.

His fingers tangle in your hair, dig into your hips, hold you down like he's afraid you're going to disappear, too, and god, it's so _wrong_ that his breath on your neck is turning you on because his mother is probably dead and Lilly's dead too, and you shouldn't be doing this, not now, not here, not with him.

But when you try to tell him not to worry about you, his mouth takes yours and his fingers slide down, and you're begging him, begging him like you always swear you won't, and _Logan, Logan, Logan_, you're clinging to him like you're the one who's lost something tonight.

And you don't want to admit to yourself that you probably have.

~

You sneak out while he's sleeping. You know it's cruel (he's just lost somebody else), but you can't sleep and you can't stay and you can't be his salvation or his illusion or his narcotic; whatever he needs now, you still don't know.

You're not his girlfriend. It's not your responsibility.

(_But Lilly would've..._)

You sit in your assigned parking space beneath the dull streetlight at home (you hate how winter makes it seem like midnight at seven o'clock) for ten minutes watching the little green numbers on the clock pass before you find yourself backing out and driving back to the Camelot, and your stomach is in knots, but you won't back down now because Lilly wouldn't.

The doors lock automatically, so you have to knock and wake him up to get back in, and when he finds you in the doorway, he looks like he's seeing Lilly or his mother or someone else who won't ever come back, and you shift your feet uncomfortably because you don't know what to say.

He just steps to the side to let you in.

You know this a mistake. You know you shouldn't even as you walk in and take off your jacket and curl up against him in the bed. You know this is _wrong_, but you ~~can't~~ don't want to let go yet.

You tell yourself you could. You just don't want to.

~

You get home in time to catch your father on his way out the door to trace a skip through Santa Fe. He tells you it shouldn't be more than three days, only two if everything goes right. You tell him it's okay, you and Wallace are going to be busy with your (fake) project, anyway.

You don't want to think about what it means that your first thought is going back to Logan and the Camelot and all the things you shouldn't be doing. You don't really remember why you talked him into coming to your place instead of going back to the Camelot -- you said it was something about the cleanliness of rent-by-the-hour rooms and the big (unidentifiable) stain on the carpet next to the bathroom -- but you don't think that was really it.

(And you don't want to dig deeper than that, or you might realize something you don't want to.)

Saturday and Sunday, you and Logan make your own weird little world comprised of pizza deliveries and Chinese takeout and bad movies on basic cable (by tacit agreement, avoiding any channel that has a news broadcast). He's had you on the couch, against the refrigerator, in the shower, and on your bed, and now everywhere you look you know you're going to remember the way he feels surrounding you, inside you.

You know it's gotten bad when you like the sound of that.

~

The day after his mother's memorial service, Wallace lurks outside your journalism class until he catches your eye, and when you go out to see what he wants, he tells you quite possibly the last thing you ever expect to hear.

Logan is in Clemmons' office. You doubt this is anything unusual, especially when Logan's in one of his more assholish moods like he has been since the funeral, but then Wallace mentions it's because he broke Dick Casablanca's nose, and you almost don't want to know, but Wallace tells you anyway.

Logan broke Dick's nose defending your honor. Or at least, that's what it boils down to according to Wallace, who says that Dick made with the same old tired insults about you being a slut who'd do the entire swim team while jacked up on goofballs, and Logan called him a fucking moron who was making them all sound stupid with the same old pointless shit.

And fuck, this is just WAY too much like a relationship now.

And then Wallace is looking at you curiously, and oh, _GOD_, how exactly are you supposed to explain away the fact that Logan, your biggest enemy of the last year, is in the principal's office for breaking the nose of some guy who was saying the exact same shit that Logan himself has said about you before?

You're going to kill Logan for this.

~

Okay, so you don't kill him.

You don't break his nose, either, but you do land a solid punch to his jaw that takes him so off-guard he stumbles and hits the floor, looking up at you, stunned. "... the hell, Veronica?" he cradles his jaw even though you know you couldn't have hurt him that badly, and you just glare at him. "What?"

"Why did you break Dick's nose?" you demand, hoping that maybe Wallace got it all wrong and this was really about some other girl Logan's been screwing, but you're not an optimist and you know the odds of that one being true. It would make your life easier, and you know whoever's up there in charge won't let _that_ happen anytime soon.

"He deserved it." You just look at him until he shrugs and adds, "You obviously already know. You should be thanking me."

"Thanking you?" You roll your eyes and ooze sarcasm at him to cover the fact that the tiny romance-reading, happy-ending part of Lilly's Veronica still inside you _does_ think it was pretty damn noble. "Gee, Logan, thank you for making sure everybody is going to start wondering what's going on with us! Why don't you just tell everybody how much proof you have of me being a big slut!"

"You're not a slut!" Logan looks even more surprised than you feel that he said it, but he shakes his head, and tells you, "If you were a slut, you wouldn't be like fucking a--"

"If you finish that sentence, I swear I'll kill you myself." You mean every damn word and fully intend to carry out the threat if you have to. He doesn't sound like he was trying to hurt you, but the word 'virgin' cuts deeper than it still should, and you won't let him see you flinch at it. "And you've said just as much shit as Dick has, so what gives?"

He looks like he'd rather be anywhere but here as he shifts uncomfortably, and this is almost too surreal because Logan is always in control and never looks awkward or uncomfortable, especially not around you. "That was different."

"Why? Because _you_ weren't the one reaping the benefits of my sluttiness?"

"Damn it, Veronica, just drop it," he finally tells you. And before you know it, you're yelling at him and he's yelling back and this is _normal_, and normal's better than wrong is, right? Then he's got you back against the wall and his mouth is bruising yours and you're whimpering his name, and everything's gone to hell again.

"This isn't over," you growl at him as you find yourself grabbing a fistful of his shirt and shoving him back into the wall across from you (you may never feel in control around him, but he doesn't have to know that), your mouth never straying far from his, and you think he mutters something against your lips as he drags you closer to him.

And you hate that even with his hand curled around the back of your neck, keeping your mouth at his, you can't get close enough to him and you're wrinkling his shirt in your hands, clutching his forearms, making little sounds against his mouth that aren't like you at all, but you know you're the one making them.

It's sometime after you tear the buttons off his shirt that you stop caring.

~

The second time after a fight, he's always gentle with you, like he's trying to apologize for the harshness of his mouth and the finger-shaped bruises on your skin. You know he'll never say the words -- he is still Logan Echolls, after all, and he doesn't apologize for anything -- and this is as close as he can get to telling you he's sorry.

He makes you uncomfortable when he's being sincere and kind.

You're laying on your side, looking at the wall so you don't have to face him, and he's tracing his fingers over your skin wherever he can touch, and somehow his hand slips over yours and your fingers are intertwined with his and he's pressing soft kisses against your neck as he whispers to you.

And it's wrong, but it feels right.

You still ~~don't like~~ hate him. You have to. He's Logan.

(And you're Veronica Mars.)

This can't be like _this_, soft and gentle and sweet. You're not soft people. You're hard and tough, and you won't break over anything. (Except each other.) And as you stare down at your fingers laced through his and listen to him whisper memories of Lilly (not his mother, because that's too fresh; or maybe too personal, you don't know what he's thinking), you don't want to realize that this is the safest you've felt in a long time.

You shouldn't feel safe with Logan.

"Veronica?" his whisper is so close to your ear it makes you shiver, and his breath is warm on your neck as you feel him shift closer to you, and this shouldn't feel so _right_, damn it. He hesitates slightly, and then tells you firmly, "You're not a slut."

There's silence for a moment while you think about what to say to him. You shouldn't want to tell him about the party, about the rape, about being helpless with someone other than him and how deep it really cuts to hear people say those things about you sometimes, but god help you, you do.

You almost think he'd understand.

It's not as safe being with Logan when he's soft and kind; he makes you ~~need~~ want things you can't have, like _this_ all the time. (_But you don't really want this, you really don't, you can't..._) You finally settle on telling him, "I know."

You're smart enough to know not to tell him more. But you're dumb enough to want to.

~

You know Logan.

He's supposed to be just an asshole, just the guy Lilly used to date, just the guy you hate... he's not supposed to be this complicated. He can't make you like him, even if he can be soft with you sometimes. He's still Logan. You still _know_ him.

Or you think you know him.

You think you know somebody. Turns out you don't even know yourself.


End file.
